‘She Told Me My Energy Shifted’ – Superstar Designer Jeremiah Brent Looks Back to a Time When Only Rachel Zoe Believed in Him

Long before Jeremiah Brent became one of America's most celebrated interior designers, he was a teenager sifting through thrift stores, repainting furniture and transforming every apartment he rented before promptly moving on to the next. It was never about decorating for decoration's sake. Instead, he was driven by a fascination with how homes tell the stories of the people who live in them – a lesson first learned in his Portuguese grandmother's house, where every ceramic, every plant and every well-worn corner revealed something about her life.

Today, whether through his own design studio, television work or bestselling books, Jeremiah has become one of the industry's most thoughtful voices on the emotional power of interiors. In this installment of our Layered Lives series of interviews, he explains how, rather than chasing perfection, he believes the most memorable homes are those layered with memory, meaning and personality. Here, he reflects on his unlikely route into design, the early days of building his business, and why every great interior begins with listening.

Homes & Gardens: Where do you think your love of design comes from?

Jeremiah Brent: There have been a lot of different ways design entered into my life, but my grandmother was really creative. She was Portuguese and her house was filled with ceramics. Everywhere, there were plants, and I remember it all feeling very rooted and nurturing. She would sit in the corner of the house, perched in the sunshine – I remember the squeaks of the doors, and I also remember thinking that this house was so her, and showed so many parts of her. That became my fascination.

Homes & Gardens: Was there any hint that design might become your career?

Jeremiah Brent: I was always very motivated. If I worked in a smoothie shop as a teenager then I was going to find a way to be the manager. I gave everything to everything. But at the time I was growing up, interior design just wasn't cool – it wasn't a profession people felt empowered to do. And I grew up poor so it really wasn't a career I knew much about. I was obsessed with fashion and clothing and the 1990s were the height of the big magazine shoot, those iconic stories in glossy pages, the cult of editors and photographers. It was an interesting way to tell stories.

Homes & Gardens: And in fact, fashion was your first career path, wasn't it?

Jeremiah Brent: I went to college in San Francisco and the moment I got to Los Angeles after that I was like, 'here I go!' LA was a safe, familiar place where I could figure out who I was.

Homes & Gardens: What sort of work were you doing?

Jeremiah Brent: I was styling for Rachel Zoe, and I had done a lot of interior design for smaller projects. I was responding to whatever opportunities came to me, and what I loved were the same principles applied to both fashion and interiors. Rachel was the first person to believe in me and her belief and encouragement went a long way. She told me that my energy shifted when I was talking about interiors.

Homes & Gardens: What did your own home look like at the time?

Jeremiah Brent: The story of my homes... well! I moved a bunch in my 20s – I would fix up whichever apartment I was in, I would make it beautiful and then I would break my lease and move on. I drive my husband around town now and am constantly saying, 'I lived here' and 'I lived here.' Before I knew it could be a profession it was just something to do, it was a passion. I would go to Goodwill stores, do a lot of DIY, reimagine things and repaint them. There was always a reason I did everything and it always told the story of where I was.

Homes & Gardens: And then you set up your own design firm – what was that like?

Jeremiah Brent: It was terrifying. That was the time when it was not super hot to create a design firm and I had no idea how to charge people, how to get fabric samples, even what a spreadsheet was. I paid my mother and a paralegal at the firm she was at to create my LLC. I got a decal with my logo on it for $100 and took three days to put it on my walls. Then I hired a woman called Beth who was fresh out of college and I told her all my dreams and she believed me. Together, we started my firm. It was hard, and it was me going from door to door, putting handmade cards in every showroom in LA. Slowly I got a project, or two projects, and it was scary. Young designers need the infrastructure to succeed.

Homes & Gardens: Did any of those early projects feel like a tipping point?

Jeremiah Brent: The first project I ever did. The client was pregnant, and pregnancy is my Kryptonite – I'll do anything for a pregnant person. She had $10,000 for her whole house and I'm not sure how I did it. Actually, it cost me money to do it. I silver-leafed her fireplace on my own – honestly, you couldn't pay me to do that now! But I remember the way her eyes lit up and how she loved everything, and how it was the same way you feel when you fall in love. I had never thought you could make work out of your passion, and it was then I realized I could create a career you could love and that evoked emotional reactions. She referred me on to other clients and that's how it all began.

Homes & Gardens: But how did you know what you were doing?

Jeremiah Brent: I still don’t know what I am doing! But I love what I do. My passion is the thing that fuels me. While my personal design style has evolved over time – I'm now married with children, which has had a kaleidoscopic effect on how I see the world – I don't want to be known as just one thing. My firm is now 57 people, but everything we do comes from my perspective.

Homes & Gardens: You've said that home is where we tell the story of who we are. What are the most meaningful ways a home can communicate identity?

Jeremiah Brent: The most beautiful homes I've ever been in are not 'gung-ho beauty', they're not about how much money you spent. My husband proposed to me in Peru and on that trip we went into a hut where the woman who lived there had pinned up fabric on the walls. It was so elegant, the pride she had in her home, and I knew who she was by the way she lived. That's what we're here to create. If you know the laughs that have been had in a room, the cigarettes smoked... that's what I am trying to capture. Beauty is so subjective, but what I am good at is listening to people and their stories, and that's what guided me throughout my career.

Homes & Gardens: What sort of things do you ask people to get to know their stories?

Jeremiah Brent: I ask them what the first room is that they ever loved, what the first space was that held them. And the first room that ever mattered to them is the most important. One of the things I'm fascinated by is having a space you never want to leave. Nothing is meant to be transactional, and to know where you belong is the goal.

Homes & Gardens: Does a connection often come from things? Because your spaces are usually fairly pared back.

Jeremiah Brent: Listen, it's a fine line. I’m a purist, I want something to be as beautiful to me as possible. But I learned that from doing design TV that you have to figure out what it is that tethers people to things. My husband has a connection to things whereas I have more of a connection to places.

Homes & Gardens: You mentioned that becoming a parent changed your worldview – did it also change how you think about design?

Jeremiah Brent: It hasn’t changed what I bring into the house – we’re not the sort of parents who say you can't have brass just because there are sticky fingerprints likely to be about. I was raised to have respect for what was in the house, and my kids are the same. We did have a glass table when Poppy was little – and she dropped a brass bowl on it, which we rushed to pick up, so maybe we have changed what materials we leave out, just a little. Our daughter thinks we have the worst taste, honestly.

Homes & Gardens: If every home tells a story, what story are you trying to tell with your own?

Jeremiah Brent: We have furniture that means a lot. I have a beautiful Bugatti chair that I always wanted, and while our combined aesthetics don’t have much room for Bugatti, I found a way to make it work, and it's where I sat to bottle-feed the children. I am not sentimental about items, just kids' things. That chair, a little settee in Poppy's nursery that is now in our home in Portugal. Those things tell the story of our family.

Homes & Gardens: Lastly, how do you think a home should feel?

Jeremiah Brent: The best thing someone can say is, 'This feels just like me.' Then I am done for. It's not about how beautiful a home is or how good the marble is – those things don't keep you or hold you. A home can keep you in a hard time, it can move you, it can have the ghosts of experience; it's so multifaceted. What I feel like my job is, is to be a custodian of stories. To make a home feel like you.

For Jeremiah, beautiful interiors have never really been about furniture, finishes or flawless styling. Instead, they are about creating spaces that reflect the lives unfolding within them – places that hold memories, celebrate personality and quietly support the people who call them home. It's an approach that has guided his career from the very beginning, and one that feels increasingly relevant in a world obsessed with image. As he puts it, the greatest compliment he can receive isn't admiration for a room's aesthetics, but hearing a client walk in, look around and simply say, 'This feels just like me.'

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